Biggie Too Fat for Brooklyn Corner Honor?

Although a petition had been started to name a Brooklyn corner after the late rapper, some neighborhood board members think he was too fat and misogynistic for the honor. Others, think the changing complexion of the neighborhood was a bigger reason.

Earlier this year, Brooklyn resident LeRoy McCarthy started an online petition to name a local street corner after Biggie Smalls, specifically an intersection near the late rapper’s childhood home. The petition gained enough strength to be brought before a community board hearing yesterday and DNA Info reports that the board members weren’t so keen on dedicating part of their neighborhood to the man responsible for Ten Crack Commandments.

In fact, they complained that Biggie was too criminal, too misogynistic, and, weirdly, too physically unfit to deserve the tribute. That’s essentially what one member told the room: CB2 member Lucy Koteen said she “looked up the rapper’s history” and read what she had learned to the full board Tuesday night.

“He started selling drugs at 12, he was a school dropout at 17, he was arrested for drugs and weapons charge, he was arrested for parole violations, he was arrested in North Carolina for crack cocaine, in 1996 he was again arrested for assault, he had a violent death and physically the man is not exactly a role model for youth,” she said. “I don’t see how this guy was a role model and frankly it offends me.”